Netzer Symphonies

[John H White]

When Alan made that amazing discovery of Johann Rufinatscha at the Tiroler Landsmuseem a couple of years back, he also mentioned that they also had CDs of other Tiroler symphonists on offer. More recently I have invested in some of these disks and I reckon the 4 symphonies of Josef Netzer make for particularly enjoyable listening.
   I am particularly impressed with the way he used the contrapuntal finale of Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony as the model for that of his own first symphony. (Of course, Spohr did the same thing with the Overture to the Magic Flute when he wrote one of his operatic overtures).  Again, the opening movement of his 4th symphony has quite an affinity with the first movement of the Eroica Symphony. Maybe this is what attracts me so much to these works, because I feel that I am on familiar ground!

[Mark Thomas]

Netzer is certainly an enjoyable listen, John, but I think that you have hit the nail on the head. To my ear at least he's a follower, not an original thinker. The four symphonies are pleasantly and competently commonplace for their time.  He's not a masterful "summer-up either, so to compare his achievement to Rufinatscha's, and I know that you weren't, is very misleading. They were both symphonists from the Tirol, but Netzer's stature doesn't even approach Rufinatscha's.

[John H White]

On that score (forgive the pun) Mark, one could say that at least the earlier symphonies of Ferdinand Ries are not particularly original but I,for one, still find them very enjoyable listening!

[Mark Thomas]

And I absolutely agree, John. I was simply forestalling any inference that Netzer was in the same league as Rufinatscha.

[Josh]

I don't see anything wrong with being a "follower".  I mean, theoretically couldn't someone of superior talent follow an original thinker of inferior talent and actually improve on the idea?  Suppose we find that Rufinatscha was actually the slavish imitator of a completely lost teacher, and simply applied genius to the style of another?

There are ladder builders, and ladder climbers.  All I'm saying is that sometimes ladder climbers can go higher by using the rungs placed by the original-thinking builders.  I've never held "originality" to mean anything when I'm actually listening... notes are notes, and I enjoy them or not, regardless of any other factors.  And, as I mentioned with Rufinatscha above, even in the case of supposedly-original composers, we can't be absolutely sure how original they really were, especially back in the days before provable copyrights and virtually infinite record-keeping.  Even more, to wax truly philosphical, there are no 100% original composers since the first person to have the very concept of music in the caveman days, so it's all a matter of personal judgment just how you want to rate a composer's originality.  Someone deeply familiar with obscure French orchestral music of the 1790s might not tag Beethoven as the hyper-original orchestrator that even highly educated listeners usually do.

I would be completely thrilled if someone in modern times, with fully equal musical genius and talent to, say, Beethoven, were to compose new works in complete slavish imitation of Beethoven.  Theoretically, all things being equal, it would be precisely as good as if Beethoven had written more music.  So what difference would it make whether or not this composer were original or not?  You're getting a new Beethoven symphony, as far as listening goes, so what difference does it make how "original" it is if it's absolutely perfectly in synch with what Beethoven himself would have written?  Not that I'm saying this was Netzer - based on my listening, I'd say no - but you know what I mean.

[jimmosk]

Josh, I wish it were so!  But there seems to be a very high premium put on originality. Even Harold Shapero's wonderful Symphony for Classical Orchestra, which is far from a "slavish imitation" of Beethoven (I'd say it's the musical child of Beethoven and Stravinsky, raised in the American heartland), was criticized for being too much like Beethoven -- by no less a personage than Aaron Copland!

The exact quote, from a 1948 New York Times review, is "Stylistically, Shapero seems to feel a compulsion to fashion his music after some great model. Thus, his ... Serenade ... is founded upon neoclassical Stravinskian principles, his three Amateur Piano Sonatas on Haydnesque principles, and his recent long Symphony [for Classical Orchestra]  is modeled after Beethoven. ... he seems to be suffering from a hero-worship complex — or perhaps it is a freakish attack of false modesty..."

There are some brief clips of the piece at http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=43:77225~T2 and a lengthy review of it at http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/s/sny60725c.php which I should mention suggests that the automatic rejection of music "too close to past masters" may have dissipated since midcentury.
(By the way, I definitely prefer this Bernstein recording to the more recent Previn one)

-J

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Jim Moskowitz
The Unknown Composers Page: http://kith.org/jimmosk/TOC.html
My latest list of unusual classical CDs for auction: http://tinyurl.com/jimsCDs

[John H White]

I had always assumed that the style of Mahler's first symphony was entirely of his own invention until I came across Hans Rott's earlier E major work. Whether Rott would have become as great a symphonist as Mahler, had he lived long enough, is a debatable point.

[Alan Howe]

To return to Netzer, I have derived considerable enjoyment from Symphony No.4, but find that the piece is let down by its finale. It's not for me so much the lack of originality as the lack of quality that lets the work down - in complete contrast to Rufinatscha whose level of inspiration starts off and is maintained at a much higher level.

As for Ries, I find him an altogether more inspired and inspiring composer than, say, Netzer, or his Tyrolean predecessor, Gänsbacher. There's a lot more to this than merely the originator/follower debate. I'd put a lot more emphasis on quality. That'd get, say, Gernsheim well and truly out of the shadow of Brahms - where he belongs.

[Alan Howe]

After a lengthy leave, I have returned to Netzer and in particular the CD of his Symphonies 2 and 3 - or rather 3 and 2 as this is the order in which they appear on the disc. No.2 in E major from 1838 may even be his best: it is a fluent, 35-minute piece, no doubt conservative when compared to the composers of the period with whom we are more familiar, but with an attractive melodiousness all of its own and an earnestness of intent which is continually arresting.

Has anyone else acquired this CD?

[Peter1953]

I've just listened again to this CD coupling Netzer's 2&3 and I can only echo your words, Alan. But I think all 4 symphonies give us a few very pleasant listening hours.
By coincidence, earlier this afternoon I listened to the CD Tiroler Klaviermusik, featuring some of Netzer's piano music and Rufinatscha's sonata for piano four hands in D minor. Now that is a real difference. So simple Netzer sounds, so deeply-felt the Rufinatscha sonata is.

BTW, giving those Tyrolean discs another spin realizes me again how grateful we must be to Manfred Schneider. And I think that Seipenbusch gives us a really good performance with the Cappella Istropolitana Bratislava.
Alan, have you ever met Manfred Schneider? Who knows what he still has in the pipeline.

[eschiss1]

Re the contrapuntal finale of Mozart's Jupiter symphony - both the themelet that opens the finale (a Gregorian chant fragment really) and the use of a fugal texture for a symphonic finale had quite a bit of precedent, though Mozart's finale is still singular (instead of going on at length about it though- there's an interesting- I think! - and big "story" attached that is not, however, germane to this forum, as the story concerns the crises of composition faced by Haydn and Mozart in a time of transition - I refer to Alfred Einstein's Mozart: His Character, His Work - several sections of it (esp. quartets and symphonies...) 60 years or so old and probably rather out of date on some points but hopefully not wholly so on the essentials.

From what I've heard of Ries (some of the symphonies, some of the chamber works and a piano concerto or two) inclined to agree. Haven't heard Netzer yet though hope to too.

[Alan Howe]

I haven't met Manfred Schneider, although I have corresponded with him. I agree: his contribution to the rediscovery of the Tyrolean classical tradition is immense. I don't know about his plans, but I assume that someone will be recording the premiere of the to-be-reconstructed Symphony in C minor by Rufinatscha due to take place in Mals in the autumn of 2012.

[JimL]

Since you bring up Mozart's Jupiter in the work of Netzer, I feel constrained to point out that very same motive makes its way into Rufinatscha's 6th Symphony (albeit in D, not C) where it forms a "motto" that reappears in three of the four movements.

[chill319]

The four-note subject that opens the Jupiter is found similarly employed by Haydn in the contrapuntal/sonata finale of his early D-major symphony, Hob. I:13. I believe it was long a common subject in contrapuntal pedagogy, though of course by the time Netzer was writing one could not avoid thinking of Mozart's transcendental working out of its possibilities.

[Alan Howe]

Having returned to Symphony No.3 I find myself thinking that I must have underestimated it the first couple of times round. It's full of memorable material, in an idiom downstream from Schubert (mainly) and Beethoven (less so), with some particularly fetching syncopations in the finale. Overall it exhibits the sort of joie de vivre that draws you in time after time. A great re-discovery for me.